Of Strangers and Siblings
by GeishaKitten
Summary: Sasuke has to get used to the new woman in his brother's life, and fast, despite his growing, unhealthy need for attention from the both of them. ItaHinaSasu R&R please
1. Discovery

My next story in my growing collection of ItaHinaSasu love triangles....I attempted to make this one a little more lighthearted than my last blood and angst filled ones by changing canon a little. In other words, Sandaime was able to strike some agreement with the Uchiha clan and so Sasuke's family still lives and Itachi never had to go through with actually killing them. He did eventually go his own way though, as you will soon see. So yes, reviews will help me decide whether I finish this or not XD

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(C) Masashi Kishimoto

Home at last, Sasuke thought as he slid open the sliding door of his home with as much of a racket as it could possibly make; eager to make his presence known. He impatiently stood there and waited for his mother, Uchiha Mikoto, to come and attend to him in her usual irritating, yet oddly endearing way, just as she did when he returned from even the dullest and most routine of assignments. Carelessly dropping his backpack down and spilling dozens of kunai and shuriken onto the well-polished floor in the process, he was unsettled to be met by nothing but silence instead of the usual rushed pat of his mother's feet as she rushed over to either spoil or scold him, depending on her mood.

His father of course was bound to be of attending to some terribly urgent clan business that was far too solemn to be of any concern to the "baby" of the family, and his older brother had, at twenty-two years old, decided to defy their family's wishes to stick close together by getting his own place far from the main Uchiha residence. So Sasuke was used to it being just him and his mom most of the time.

Oh well, he thought with a shrug as he kicked off his shoes, languorously stretched, and made his way over to his room. It couldn't be helped, and in any case, his mother was a jounin who was perfectly capable of taking care of herself, wherever it was that she had wandered off to. Besides, it would be nice to wind down with a long shower and a nap after having to endure the nonstop chatter and messy misadventures of his squad-mates, Naruto and Sakura, for untold hours.

A slight grin made it's way across his face as he anticipated the feel of warm, rushing water over his fatigued body while he began to casually pull off his sweat-drenched shirt.

However, opening his eyes wide, he abruptly stopped walking right when he reached the doorway of Itachi's old room, a room which had become a sanctuary and shrine for Sasuke in many ways since Itachi's sudden absence. He stood quietly there with his nose wrinkled and his arms folded across his chest.

He was no Inazuka of course, but he was almost one-hundred percent positive that he had caught the undeniably arousing, yet suspiciously out-of-place scent of _woman_ defiling the sacred and untouchable refuge which had been the place where his brother had once slept and studied, _and it sure as hell doesn't smell like my mother_, he thought to himself.

Upon hearing the soft and rhythmic sound of this mysterious phantom woman's breathing, he hastily threw open the door and gasped aloud at the sight which met his eyes. Lying there asleep on his brother's bed, with hands folded peacefully under her head, was a young woman. A nicely curved young woman with long, sapphire hair falling over most of her charmingly flushed face, and appearing to be wearing little else besides one of Itachi's old, used-up and stretched out shirts. Sasuke noticed this and began to blush a little as his eyes began to wander over to her bared thighs and shapely calves.

He began to unconsciously walk closer towards the slumbering girl until he was standing right over her, close enough to watch the subtle, rhythmic movements of her body as she breathed.

"Who are you?" He thought aloud while gently brushing aside some of the softly flowing, yet tangled strands of hair away from her face in order to get a better look. In response, the girl's eyes began to lazily and languorously open, and for the second time that day, Sasuke nearly gasped aloud.

The eyes that blinked with confusion and opened wide to meet his were shocking, flashing white eyes with a slight kiss of violet. _I know these eyes,_ he realized, struggling in the shock of the moment to put a name to them. Before it came to mind, however, she had sprung up and scuttled over to the farthest corner of the bed with a loud and frightened "meep" sort of sound and covered her face with one of the pillows there.

I wonder when she's going to realize that I've got a clear view of her underwear from this angle, thought Sasuke, annoyed at no longer being able to stare into those two silvery moons which she had for eyes.

"Did he do something to you, Hinata-chan?"

Sasuke turned swiftly around with his mouth open and his fists clenched as he watched his brother Itachi, whom he hadn't seen in quite some time, walk past him as though he were invisible and then tenderly wrap his arms around the blushing girl, petting and comforting her as if she were a small child.

"It's okay, I'm here now. You go and get dressed while I deal with him over there for you." Itachi's kind smile turned suddenly wicked as he glanced in Sasuke's direction while Hinata, which Sasuke had finally remembered to be her name at about the same moment that Itachi had spoken it, nodded obediently and scurried away. She pulled down hard at the bottom of the shirt she was wearing in order to hide her underwear, which unbeknownst to her had already been seen, as she ran.

Sasuke could only wonder at the number of times that Itachi must've seen them, among other things, which he blushed to imagine. Glaring hard at his still-smirking brother, Sasuke decided to be the one to finally break the awkward silence which had fallen over the little room the second that Hinata had left it.

"What," he began, in a slow and deep tone of voice. "In the hell! Was that all about?"

Itachi looked back at Sasuke as though he were impossibly dense.

"What do you think? She's a shy girl, Sasuke, and you scared her, standing over her all half dressed like that. She didn't know what your intentions were. You're a lot more impulsive then you let on to be. Who knows what might have happened if I hadn't decided to come over here to see how she's been doing."

"I can assure you, nothing would've happened." Sasuke was grudgingly pulling his shirt back over his head, annoyed by Itachi's implication that he could be a possible danger to somebody in his own home, and besides, he hadn't been the only one half-dressed. "What is she doing here in the first place? Can you at least answer that?"

Itachi looked down for a moment, shaking his head slightly with barely-kept in disapproval over Sasuke's social blindness.

"Don't you know even a single thing about her Sasuke? At least one single thing? She's been in the same classes as you for most of your life.

"That's not answering my question."

"Fine." Itachi sighed. "Hinata has been disowned by the Hyuuga clan for refusing her duties as heir. Her younger sister Hanabi is to take her place and will one day take the place of leader. As a result, she was considering moving in with Kurenai, or perhaps one of her squadmates, but I offered her a better solution."

"Oh God, spare me," Sasuke muttered under his breath. "So all of a sudden two spoiled clan heirs are sticking together now? Or are you trying to add on to your already near-perfect karma by saving yet another damsel-in distress? Seriously, nii-san." Sasuke hated, absolutely hated, to admit it, but he pretty much despised any alliances his brother made which did not involve him.

The wicked gleam was beginning to appear once more in Itachi's eye, further unsettling Sasuke. "Oh, I'm not just rescuing her," he replied as he began to casually walk out his old room door. "I'm going to marry her, so get used to it, little brother. You'll be seeing a lot more of her from now on."

Sasuke began to blink furiously and rubbed at his eyes as though what he had just heard had simply been part of a bizarre dream which he could easily wake himself from.

"M…m..marry? You can't get married. What are you thinking?"

At that moment, Hinata returned, wearing a violet-colored summer kimono which brought out the lavender twinkle in her eyes, and which draped beautifully over all the curves of her body. The warm smile which she gave to Itachi left him feeling as though all his defenses were falling down at his feet.

Sasuke couldn't stomach change, was always suspicious of the unfamiliar, and was mostly annoyed by females. Throw in the fact that this strange angel was a rival for his brother's all too rare attention now that he had left the family, and he just didn't know what to make of her.

He was aware that the jealousy that he felt was beyond childish and immature, but he just couldn't seem to help himself.

Change, he thought to himself while throwing a lethal stare in the light-eyed kitten of a girl's direction, could be a real bitch.

END OF CHAP 1

REVIEW!!!

NOTE: Excuse any weird typos, I had to do this at the library as my home Internet is all screwed up right now and I didn't have much time to proofread...


	2. denial

**AN: **Chapter 2 is finally finished! *does a little belly dance* Sorry for the long wait, I still don't have any Internet and it took awhile for me to get to the library again, but I very much appreciated the reviews for the first chapter, so enjoy, luvs, and keep em coming...

(c) Masashi Kishimoto

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"You mean to tell me that you actually caught them together, and in bed at that? I sure as hell wish that I had been there to witness that."

Sasuke frowned and rolled his eyes as he tried his best to ignore the disturbing barrage of mental images that his impish best friend's words were causing to pop into his head, not to mention the unashamedly curious stares from the crowd at Ichiraku upon hearing that magic combination of the words "caught," "together," and "in bed" all in the same sentence.

Sasuke had to will himself with every precious ounce of his self-control to not snatch Naruto's chopsticks from right out of his hands and then breaking them over his spiky blonde head as punishment for having such an inconveniently loud mouth. Luckily for Naruto, he was distracted by the sound of Sakura's much softer, yet occasionally just as irritating, voice.

"Hinata will make such a beautiful bride. I just can't wait to see her all dressed up in a wedding kimono, or will she wear a white wedding dress like most girls do nowadays?"

"How am I supposed to know," he answered with an impatient groan.

The thought of that childlike young woman actually marrying his brother and happily carrying out her many marital duties was enough to fully destroy any last hint of appetite that he had worked up earlier that day, when he'd been strenuously beating away at old training dummies in a wild and uncontrolled display of pent-up frustration.

"What is it with you girls and weddings anyway? Knowing the two of them, they'll probably get whatever papers or permission they need to be called married and then be done with it," was Sasuke's gruff reply to his former number-one fangirl.

"That's no fun." Sakura was pouting now, as she twirled her chopsticks round and round within her bowl of ramen, which was probably a waste of money as far as Sasuke was concerned, because Sakura, in order to compete with her nemesis Ino Yamanaka, was forever on some lame excuse for a diet and barely touched any form of food placed in front of her in the first place.

Naruto leaned close to Sakura's ear, both to get a good whiff of her cherry blossom fragrance and to let her in on a "private" comment which Sasuke was bound to hear anyway, given the epic scope of Naruto's alarm clock wail of a mouth.

"I can understand why they wouldn't want to make a big deal of things, seeing as they've probably 'been done with it' plenty of times if you get what I'm saying."

"Say something like that again, and I might just kill you."

Sakura and Naruto both turned to look into the eyes of the irritated Uchiha, and they couldn't have appeared any more lethal if his blood-red sharingan had spontaneously activated itself. Sakura decided to do her closest imitation of those eyes and looked back in Naruto's direction.

"You're disgusting, Naruto. Hinata's probably the purest and most innocent girl in all of the hidden villages, and Itachi may seem distant and aloof to most, but he's kind and gentle with women; I've seen it myself in fact."

Naruto shook his head as he looked away nervously and noisily slurped up some ramen while Sakura boldly brought her hands to her hips.

"I know. You're still jealous about the fact that when you finally had the sense in that empty head of yours to finally ask Hinata out on a date, she rejected you because Itachi had already beaten you to it."

Upon hearing Sakura's words, Sasuke literally had to will himself to carefully swallow and not choke on the thick ramen noodles, which he barely even liked in the first place.

"Naruto, you idiot!" He was able to shout out once he was able to inhale once again.

"Oh great, now I have to get lectured by you too, what is your problem today anyways?" Naruto asked, clearly getting about as irritated as Sasuke already was. A tender nerve had been struck, apparently.

"Oh, you don't even know the half of it."

The sound of the many conversations which were taking place within the small ramen shop seemed to be swirling together in Sasuke's head, giving him a queasy, nauseous feeling as he mused over the obvious fact that if Naruto had simply hooked up with that meddling Hyuuga girl when he'd first had the chance, then perhaps he could've blissfully gone on pretending that his elder brother was his alone, and that women just barely existed in his sheltered little world. At the same time, it was near to impossible for him to imagine Naruto falling for and appreciating such a fragile, yet refined sort of beauty as that which Hinata possessed.

It would've never worked out, he thought with an unconscious and subtle shake of the head.

"Hey, you're not taking this very well, are you?" Sakura's hand was resting tenderly over his shoulder now, making soft and gentle circles that tickled and irritated rather than soothed. Sasuke was never the type to tolerate spontaneous touching from anybody, especially females, and so he roughly pulled himself away, leaving Sakura's hand raised awkwardly in midair for a moment, yet she seemed as unfazed as ever by his surly attitude. "I'm sorry; we shouldn't be joking around about this. It's hard on you, isn't it? It's like he's leaving you all over again because he'll be starting his own family soon with her. That's what's really bothering you, isn't it?"

Sasuke stared down at his fingers, which were nervously tapping against the table, so that he wouldn't have to face the sisterly concern written all over Sakura's ocean colored eyes.

"It's not like that. You're reading way too far into things as usual. He's not dying or anything. I'm not 'losing' him. I barely ever see him as it is, and besides, his romantic relationships never last all that long. I don't see why this one should be any different just because there are titles like fiancée involved," he replied, trying to convince his friends as well as himself that his words were the truth, all the while realizing that he was probably failing spectacularly at both.

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Later that night, Sasuke found himself wandering aimlessly through the shadow filled streets of Konoha, trying hard to delay the inevitable return home for as long as he possibly could drag it out for.

He stared pensively at the faint outline of a rabbit within the impossibly bright full moon, and remembered Itachi pointing it out to him back when they were both still wide-eyed and innocent children. _Are you staring at this same moon right now, aniki?_, he wondered to himself, which only led to more of the same kind of useless wondering.

He wondered whether his brother was alone or with _her_, and the thought of how Hinata's feather soft pale skin was so very like that moon, and of how her long, lustrous hair seemed to be the exact same color as the night sky surrounding him, caused him to feel a sharp and intense feeling of raw need towards the pit of his stomach.

Ever the king of denial, he walked on and ignored the strength of those feelings, which were probably just cramps due to overtraining as far as he was concerned. Still, he couldn't shake off the lingering thoughts of his brother which clung to him like cicadas clung to trees in the night, and which seemed to be equally loud and insistent within his head.

As he absentmindedly kicked up smoke-like puffs of dust from the ground beneath him, he was quite cruelly interrupted from his angst filled reveries by the lightning flash and harsh whirring sound of a shuriken as it grazed the back of his neck, breaking skin before he caught it with a surprised and unsteady hand. The blood had just barely begun to trickle down his back and hands before he instinctively spun around and sent the weapon flying back dangerously close towards the one who'd originally sent it.

This mysterious, yet eerily familiar figure stepped away in time, but not before the force of the spinning blade caused her awkwardly oversized ANBU mask to drop ungracefully to the pavement below, revealing a shocking mass of blood red hair which Sasuke knew all too well.

"Karin," Sasuke whispered with a groan as he tried to plan the kindest possible way to get yet another meddling woman out of his hair.

_It seems it never ends, does it?_, he thought with a smile.

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ah the end of chap.2...in case any of you didn't know, I am a huge Karin fanh as well as a Hinata fan ...*ducks from the barrage of rotten tomatoes being thrown in my direction*...but don't worry, Hinata will still be the main female focus in this tale, which I'm still trying to keep lighthearted despite the angst in this chappie, which I mostly added for fun XD

The reasons for Sasuke and Itachi's falling out, despite the fact that neither ever joined Akatsuki inn this story, will be explained in the next chapter.

REVIEW PLEASE!!!!!! CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM WELCOME!!!!!!  
GOMENASAI FOR ANY TYPOS!!!!


	3. Truth and Lies

The third chapter, finally finished and revised a little, with some sweet ItaHina luv thrown in *nod* enjoy!

(c) Masashi Kishimoto

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Uchiha Itachi had always been a master at the art of acting; at hiding or holding back his true emotions and then changing them to better suit his purposes. In another life, he surely could've been recognized as an award winning talent, but really; such skills were a neccessity in the profession which he'd unfortunately been born into. They were a matter of life-or-death itself during high level ninja assignments, yet even he was struggling something fierce in order to hold back an amused grin from revealing just how much he was enjoying the sight in front of him.

Hinata's eyes were widening and reddening with girlish shock and worry as her small and sensually shaped mouth quivered as a result of her obvious effort to keep herself from crying out loud. Hands all but dripping with near-wifely tenderness, she traced the bloody serpentine curve of the fresh wound which stretched from his bare chest down towards his stomach.

"How could you let yourself get so easily injured, Itachi-kun?" She absentmindedly began to wipe her tear-streaked eyes and nose with the same blood -soiled bit of cloth which she'd been tending to his wounds with just moments earlier. He really did smile then, as it was Hinata's sweet and awkward antics such as those which continued to draw him closer to her. As for the answer to her question, Itachi would never let her know that he had allowed himself to become moderately injured in anticipation of the very moment which he was now enjoying.

The wound, a mere scratch really, had been given to him during a successful afternoon attempt by ANBU to search for and eliminate any discovered spies of his and Konoha's longtime nemesis Orochimaru. He could've easily dodged the enemy's kunai and shuriken at any time, but in the heat of the moment, he couldn't resist the thought of Hinata's graceful fingers lovingly carressing his bare skin as her ample chest heaved up and down with emotion, as his poor Hinata could never take the sight of a loved one even mildly injured.

"I think that being together with you like this has weakened me as of late," he said in a seductive near whisper as he roughly grabbed her by the hips and buried his face in the warmth of her neck.

"D...don't say silly things like that, Itachi-kun. They're not true. You can't be weakened. It's not possible," she replied, and the note of dissaproval in her voice made him feel somewhat like an infatuated student glad to get a scolding from his favorite teacher. He could almost forget himself when he was near her, forget all about the world, and most importantly; he could forget about the fact that he had murdered his closest friend on earth years ago as a result of what he now knew to be simply a tragic misunderstanding between his clan and his village.

_It's about time I let tried to let that go,_he thought as he listened to the blood pulsing through his love's body, and took comfort from the fact that she was still very much alive. &&&&&&&&&&&&

"Good God, Sasuke!" Karin exclaimed with a nervous, flirty giggle as she exxageratedly bent down to pick up and dust off the grinning, catlike mask which had fallen to the ground earlier, displaying the few curves she was lucky enough to have in the proccess.

"Good God, what, Karin," he replied harshly as he rubbed the still aching spot on his neck, clearly not amused in the least by her surprise arrival.

"I wasn't intentionally trying to hurt you, I swear. You know that I could never do anything like that to you, Sasuke." Sasuke gave Karin a skeptical stare, as judging by the obviously forced tone of concern which laced her every word, Sasuke found her to be miles away from convincing.

"I was only trying to get your attention because it's been so long since we last had a civil conversation that didn't end up turning into a messy argument. I thought for sure that you were going to dodge that shuriken," she continued. Her eyes were opened saucer wide, her lips were parted slightly, and her pinky finger was resting near the corner of her mouth in a clear gesture of artificial innocence which nearly caused him to roll his eyes at the irony of it. Karin, innoccent; the very thought was close to laughable as far as Sasuke was concerned.

The awkward silence was begginning to grow between them as though the world had suddenly gone on mute, it's only interruptions being the hurried scurrying of raccoons and stray cats scavenging for food in nearby trash cans.

"Why won't you just hurry the hell up and say something to me, damnit!" Karin yelled, her mask of sweetness and care falling off nearly as quick as her ANBU mask had. _Oh, I really don't know why I haven't talked to you all this time, _Sasuke thought mockingly. _Maybe it has a little something to do with the fact that I used youu for my own selfish purposes, dumped you, and then barely even acknowledged that you ever even existed afterwards._

It was only the truth, after all. Sasuke and Karin had first met after Sasuke was given the honor of heading a particularly risky mission to liberate the prisoners and forced experimentees of the notoriously ruthless missing -nin Orochimaru. The impulsive, bespectacled redhead had taken an obvious liking to Sasuke, and for once he had seen a way in which a woman could prove to be of use to him.

To put it bluntly, he'd used her as a mere means of gaining some much needed parental attention, because with her alluringly thigh-highed footwear, navel-bearing top, and complete and total lack of ladylike manners, she'd been everything that Sasuke had known his parents would hate for him to choose in a lover. In fact, now that Sasuke thought of it, she was probably the polar opposite of Itachi's modest and thoroughly well-bred fiance, who currently occupied most of his thoughts.

Pushing all thoughts of that other young woman aside , a naughty smile began to spread across the corners of his lips as he remembered the day that he'd first brought Karin home and introduced her to his parents as his new girlfriend and possible future wife. His mother had looked as though she were going to burst into horrified tears at any moment , and his father had simply shook his head without a word, dissapointment clouding the face which always looked somewhere near dissapointed to begin with. As for Sakura and Naruto, they had barely spoken a word to him till they up and got over the fact that Sasuke was no longer their sole property. Sai was the only one who had no complaints as he had gotten Karin to pose for more than a few _special_ paintings of his. _Just why the hell did I stay with that damned woman so long anyways_, Sasuke thought, remembering his initial disgust upon first seeing his scantily clad _girlfriend_ immortalized in paint for all to see.

Luckily for both himself and his family however, the novelty of a relationship played out for no other real reason other than mere shock value on his part, had faded quicker than the printed words on the dirtiest parts of Make Out Paradise had faded beneath Kakashi-sensei's sweaty fingers, and so Sasuke had heartlessly given Karin the boot right out of his life. _What a relief,_ he thought, trying to hold back the memory of her bursting into tears, screaming, and hitting him repeatedly in the ribs that night. Let's just say that many of the scars covering his body did not come from high-stakes ninja combat.

Karin tensed noticably as she seemed to be aware of just what he was thinking. "Is this all some kind of sick joke to you, Uchiha? Is that all that we were, some sort of amusing joke?"

That happened to be exactly what he had thought, but he couldn't fight the urge to sugarcoat things just a little.

"Hey, I helped you to make a respectable life for yourself, didn't I? ANBU would've never considered allowing someone like you into their ranks if I hadn't brought up your chakra sensing skills to them and helped to convince them that you, along with Suigetsu and Juugo, were trustworthy enough. So don't you dare go along acting as if I threw you away and then hung you out to dry or something along those lines."

Responding to his words, Karin began to slowly inch forward closer to Sasuke as though she hadn't quite heard him properly and could barely believe what had just come out of his mouth. In one swift motion, she removed her glasses so that he could better view the way in which her liquid, blood red eyes seemed to be reflecting back the burning crimson flames of hell itself; a special ability that Sasuke had found most women were capable of possessing when angered, regardless of their eye color.

"You." Karin whispered as each word that she spoke became successively louder until her voice was a raspy near-shriek. "You arrogant bastard! I may have wanted you, but never once did I need you to help me in any way once I was free of Orochimaru's clutches. Never!"

Sasuke winced for a moment, expecting a well-deserved slap in the face for his so -called arrogance, but it never came. Instead, Karin continued on.

"You swear the whole damn world revolves around you and your whims, Sasuke, but when it comes down to it, your good looks don't really matter in the long run, because if I've learned anything at all during my short time in Konoha, it's that there's no self-respecting kunoichi here who will put up with you the way that I did." Turning aroundwith all the grace and sass that she was able to muster up at that moment, she began to leave him without giving him another chance to defend himself.

Sasuke watched her leave and fought the urge to throw something at her diminishing form. _Why shouldn't they put up with me? _Sasuke clenched both his teeth and his fists as the thoughts hammered through his mind. Plenty of women had put up with much worse from his brother after all. Itachi could break a multitude of sensitive hearts and still be viewed as a perfectly honorable gentleman, when Sasuke knew him to be ruthless and cunning to the core.

_I just don't get it, _he thought, while at the same time mentally beating himself up over the fact that his thoughts were once again obsessively circling back to his brother and his buxom bride-to-be, with Karin finally all but forgotten. _It will only be a matter of time before he hurts her too, and much worse than what I did to Karin, _he predicted with a defiant shrug of the shoulders as he too prepared to head back home before his mother began to get paranoid. As he turned around to leave, however, Karin unexpectedly called out to him one last time, as though she had been reading his mind, and for all that he knew, perhaps she had been. She had always been able to tell when he had been lying to her after all. Mindreading was only a short step away from such an unsettling ability.

The words which she called out to him made the air around him feel as hard to breathe in as the strong perfume cloud which seemed to permeate through every limb of Karin's body. "You're not even half the man that your brother is!" She shouted in a snake-like tone of voice.

END OF CHAP.

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Sasuke got a nice good tounge-lashing there, didn't he? XD

I'm having fun with this story

REVIEW!


	4. Messy

**AN:** Back by demand, sort of. As always, no reviews, no new chapters...but I've missed you guys like mad, I want to kiss and hug you and take you out on a date XD

(C) Masashi Kishimoto

Sasuke liked to think of Karin as a mangy stray cat that liked to come around his way at will every once in a while, purring and begging for table straps. Hinata, on the other hand, was more like some pampered, fluffy persian cat that preferred to stay in one place most of the time and which liked to stare up at him with large, frightened eyes. Sasuke hated having to look her straight in those eyes. There were so many other parts of her that were just begging to be stared at after all. Why, oh why had he never noticed before?

At that particular moment on which he was meditating on all of Hinata's feminine glories, she was seated both comfortably and primly on the floor of his bedroom. She seemed to take no notice of the chaotic, jumbled mess of scrolls, blunted training weapons, and piles of unwashed clothes that were strewn casually about the small room, giving it a slight odor of sweat and metal. Not exactly the most welcoming atmosphere for a former heiress.

"I'm scared, Sasuke-san."

"I won't bite."

Sasuke had meant to be clever, but he regretted his lighthearted words as soon as they left his mouth, as they only caused him to imagine himself happily doing exactly what he had just said he wouldn't do.

_Highly awkward._

He was beginning to redden up lilke the tomatoes that he enjoyed snacking on so much throughout the day, but as usual, Hinata took no notice.

"NO! I mean, well, no, it's not you that I'm scared of." Hinata's face began to match his own in color. "I'm really, really sorry about how rude I was to you the other day. I was still half-asleep, so I couldn't think properly when I first saw you standing there."

Sasuke's cavern-cold heart thawed out a bit as he realized that he was the one who truly should be giving a slight bow while apologizing for rude and thoughtless behavior, but the soft and squishy feeling within barely lasted for a second.

"That was nothing," he replied with a dismissive shake of the head. "Just get straight to the point already. You wanted to talk about how you were afraid of something. Why couldn't you just talk to Itachi about it? What do I have to do with any of it?"

Hinata then stood up and placed her right hand hard on Sasuke's shoulder and her mouth a little too close to his ear. The anti skin-on-skin contact alarm in his brain was setting off like mad as she began to speak, tickling his ear with her unsteady breath.

"I can't talk about it with him because it's being married to him, permanently, that I'm most afraid of. Please, oh please, don't tell him. I'll do anything, just please don't tell him."

Sasuke stepped back with near electric speed, severing himself from her touch.

"You don't love him," Sasuke stated, eager accussation coloring the tone of his voice. He'd known all along that she was all wrong for his brother. She was just another social climber looking for someone to help her out. He'd known it all along. A million different insulting words to call a woman were parading through his brain, but Hinata's lips were starting to tremble like a scolded child's and she was biting down in order to keep her composure, it seemed. Seeing that gesture gave him a fleeting taste of pure triumph which was followed by a not so fleeting impulse to still that trembling mouth with his own. Hadn't Itachi chided him for being too impulsive and rash once before? It was on that day when he had first noticed, really noticed, Hinata as a grown woman for the first time.

"You're wrong!"

Interrupted from his rash daydreams, Sasuke could hardly believe it but the most soft-spoken of females was actually shouting at him, and loudly enough for his parents to hear, which couldn't be a good thing. The whole purpose of her staying with his family, as oppossed to staying alone with Itachi, was to preserve her honor as a bride worthy of the clan's golden boy, and to get her used to being a loyal Uchiha rather than a Hyuuga. Having a shouting match with one's future brother-in-law had to seem anything but honorable. A good wife should be nothing but charming to her new family, Sasuke thought somewhat sarcastically as Hinata continued to shout at him.

"You're wrong, I love him more than I've ever loved anything in my whole entire life. You wouldn't understand. I was wrong to think that I could talk to you about it. I'm sorry, just forget about it."

"Wait." There was no way in hell that Sasuke was going to let a girl leave him with the last word. It just wasn't in his nature. As she turned to leave his room, he grabbed her by the arm, just a little bit more passionately than he had intended to, causing the both of them to trip on lord only knows what; considering the aforementioned state of his room.

And so that was how she ended up on the floor near his bed as though she had rolled off, with her arms helpless over her head and legs spread, with all the heat and weight of Sasuke's body laid out over hers as the scent of her perfume left hilm momentarily stupefied until the sound of a gruff and familiar male voice brought all of his nerves into a state of high alert.

"Sasuke. What might you be doing to Hyuuga-chan?"

"Dad," Sasuke replied with a nervous giggle and not a word more.

END OF CHAP.

**AN: **Ouran High School Host Club inspired cliffie at the end there XD

only the comedic effect is a bit different due to the fact that Sasuke's dad isn't a trannie... he's more of a manly man, I guess,lolz

hopefully there are no typos as I always miss those *blush*

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	5. I want to go back

**AN:** I know, I know, another embarrassingly late update. College-aged life is hard, people...without further ado

**chapter 5**

all characters (C) Masashi Kishimioto

"Dah...…"

Sasuke's pitiful search for words ended as Hinata rolled out from underneath him with surprising grace, standing and bowing with all the neccessary formality needed in front of one's future father-in-law.

"I'm sorry if we've disturbed you in any way, Uchiha-san, but as you know, I am nowhere near as strong as I should be in order to represent your, uh , honourable family name, and so Sasuke was helping me relearn my basic teqniques. They say the devil is in the details after all." She finished off her sentence with a smile worthy of a magazine cover.

Sasuke was quite floored to note how free and loose with words she could be in such an awkward and sticky situation. Was the insecure crying and stuttering all some big, clever act? Whatever it was, his normally dry and stone-willed father seemed utterly smitten and taken in by it. Perhaps the old rumor that Itachi used to tease him with when they were little was true after all, and Fugaku had hoped that his second child would be born a daughter instead of the troublesome and rebellious son which he ended up with.

"Why that's noble of you Sasuke, doing something selfless and helpful for once."

Sasuke noted with some annoyance the emphasis that his father put on the words "for once," almost hissing them really. So what if he had been a selfish brat for most of his years. Nobody would've noticed him behind the blinding glare of Itachi's brilliance otherwise. Still, he knew that he should be thankful that he was being accused of mere chivalry and not outright sexual assault.

As though reading his younger son's mind, Fugaku's gruff voice cut through Sasuke's thoughts once again.

"Perhaps it would look just a little more befitting if you held these lessons somewhere other than in your room."

"But of course," Sasuke replied, doing his best imitation of Itachi's creepily angelic smile.

"Well that settles it then, enjoy your day, my future daughter-in-law."

Sasuke stared at his father's haori clad back until he heard an oddly adorable sigh escape Hinata's mouth. Just why did she have to be so damn perplexing and yet so adorable at the same time?

"Let's go outside."  
Even her voice, full of an odd sense of urgency which proved that she had indeed been playing an act for her future dear father-in-law, sounded to Sasuke haunting and melodious. However, he wanted to hold off any further conversation with her if he could.

"It's getting dark and it's starting to rain."

"All the better for our 'training,' remember?" She pursed her lips and turned away without a word, exiting his room and walking past his parents as she made her way to the house's back exit. Her shadow against the house's pale shoji screens appeared fairylike as it mimicked her movements.

Sasuke followed her like an obediant puppy dog. _Why does she have so much power on me? _Sasuke knew that by this point, he should tell her to leave him the hell alone and to go crying back to Itachi and have him sort through all of her fickle female issues. Still, he followed her and watched how the various blue shades in her hair changed when exposed first to the artificial lighting of his home and then to the brilliant natural light of the moon.

"Listen," she told him once she was sure that they were out of earshot, clutching his shirt so hard that it was probably stretched permanantly. "I just needed someone that I could tell this to, and I know that you're not too happy about me marrying your brother in the first place, so I..."

She looked down at the ground and released his shirt as though ashamed. "I thought that I should tell you is all."

"Just go on already," Sasuke replied, a little ashamed himself that she'd been able to tell just how uncomfortable he'd been with the idea of giving his brother away, so to speak. Had he been that obvious?

Hinata smiled sweetly, almost maternally as she spoke the words that she'd been so eager to say. "Itachi inspires me so much. He's quiet and sensitive just like I am, and yet he's so projects so much power and respect."

Sasuke understood her all too well, but still he didn't like hearing her praise him so. _When will somebody speak of me like that?_

"I'm not like Hanabi and Naruto or even Neji-niisan. They grab what they want without even thinking about it, and they fight for it. They're strong. I knew I could never be the type of leaders that they aim to be, so I took the easy way out."

Sasuke remembered how his brother told him that she had been disowned for refusing to accept her position as heiress of the Hyuuga family, and for shaming them with her timidity and wish to live a normal, non-shinobi life. One in which Itachi would handle most of the dirty, bloody work just as his own father did with their mother, despite her own elite status. "Go on," he said, getting just a little more intruiged.

"Being with Itachi has shown me that I don't need to be loud or overambitious, I don't need to be something that I'm not. I can command power in my own way, with dignity and a quiet sense of self."

"Okay then, congratulations. Do that then."

Hinata shook her head before crumpling down to her knees as though she had been wounded.

"It's not that simple, Sasuke. Can't you see? I...I...I want to go back home. I want to show them that I can be a leader after all. I don't want to give up anymore."

As understanding slowly poured rainlike into Sasuke's consciousness, he resisted the urge to shake this woman who stole his brother's heart only to decide to break it in the end.

"I see. So you're going to call off the wedding."

"I just don't know what to do," she said as she gulped down her words with a large helping of salty tears.

"Don't do anything," he answered with a mocking smile, suddenly finding himself (or at least the cynical part of himself) again.  
"With respect,I think that I know my brother much better than you do. Just pout, be annoying and try to restrict all his freedoms, and he'll call the wedding off for you."

"With respect," she answered in a peeved imitation of him, "this is not a joke, Sasuke."

"I'm fully aware of that." He was the one getting in her space with a wicked grin now, making her feel uncomfortable.

"If you're so sick of being a coward, then leave him, just like that. We'll all be there to pick up the pieces." He strolled over towards the direction of his family home as he spoke just to make his point clearer that blood truly was thicker than water.

"And of course, he'll find someone new before the end of the week, I'm sure. There's over a dozen better women all just waiting for him to drop you."

Sasuke barely felt the biting sting of the slap she gave him. In fact, he rather enjoyed the scrunched and swollen look on her enraged face. It looked more like it was she who had been slapped, to be frank.

Perhaps things were going to go back to normal after all, he thought as she ran off and her skirt flipped to and fro with the breeze.

LATER THAT NIGHT

Sometimes Hinata liked to cry for no apparent reason. During these times, Itachi simply held her and said nothing else at all. He held her as they lay beneath his sheets and wondered just how she found the will and boldness to leave his parent's house and come running to his place in the middle of the night; not that he minded. Tradition be damned, he thought as he savored the way in which her warm legs got tangled with his own. However, as her tears drenched his chest and dripped onto the mattress, he couldn't help but wonder just what she was leaving left unsaid.

Simply holding her didn't seem to be enough to calm her deep well of pent-up feelings anymore.

"Hinata. Talk to me. You can tell me what's wrong. I won't be annoyed by you. You know that I never would."

She only shook her head and buried it beneath the covers in reply.

"Is it my family? Have they been bothering you?"

"No. They've been wonderful, except for maybe..."

Itachi frowned and clenched tightly at the sheet which covered Hinata's body.

"It's Sasuke, isn't it? Don't let him get to you? He hates anything that's new or different. He's immature; he always has been."

"No." She just shook her head, over and over. "No. No. It's not him."

Itachi pulled the blanket roughly up from over her head, sending her dark hair flying cutely up and over her face. He tilted her face towards his so that she was forced to look him straight in his eyes. He was perfectly aware that his particular pair of eyes could be pretty intimidating to have to stare into.

"Tell me what's on your mind. Please."

"I...I,"

END OF CHAP.

**AN:**Tis all for now. I've been busy this year but I'm enjoying 2011 so far...

Happy Valentine's Day everyone...

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